Every year, health organizations like the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) put out lists of the top killers nationally and globally. These lists contain what most of us would consider the usual suspects. For example, the 2017 CDC report lists the following top twelve killers:

1. Heart disease
2. Cancer
3. Accidents
4. Lung diseases (e.g., COPD, Pulmonary Fibrosis)
5. Stroke
6. Alzheimer’s disease
7. Diabetes
8. Influenza and pneumonia
9. Kidney disease
10. Suicide
11. Septicemia/sepsis
12. Liver disease

In this series of blog posts, we will explore the connection between redox imbalance and each of these prominent killers. While it’s no surprise that you are likely to die of one of them, you are also probably unaware that redox imbalance is behind all of them. Despite the reality that nearly all medical research grows out of the current Western medical paradigm, I see value in providing health consumers with high-level models that apply redox health principles to the top killers. Before we go on, I want to share a few tips about this series:

1. The material will be challenging, because to be credible I have to dive deeper into how the body works—and the body is complex. This journey is not for everyone, but don’t just give up and stop reading.
2. Each post begins with an illustration and ends with a “Key Takeaways” section and/or an “Action Steps” section. If you get overwhelmed with the scientific language in the main text of the post, focus on the beginning and ending, and you’ll get the main ideas.
3. It’s natural and expected that you won’t be equally interested in each disease, so feel free to skim or skip the posts you find less compelling or pertinent. This series continues our exploration of the ramifications growing out of the redox health paradigm, so you can come back later and review key concepts, or look at the Appendices for definitions of terms and details about therapeutic compounds.

Finding the right balance between simplicity and enough scientific detail to be both credible and accurate is an inherent challenge in building these models, but I’m trying hard to get there.

Redox-Driven Disease Mechanisms 

Multi-system impacts of redox imbalance affect multiple disease pathologies, e.g., cellular senescence plays a significant role in the progression of “#4 Lung disease,” but is listed under Multi-system impacts” because of its role in heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s, etc.